Programming guides, such as television programming guides for display on a television and the like, are common. These guides usually allow access to hour-by-hour programming information over an extended period of time, often on the order of weeks. In light of this fact, as well as the fact that many conventional television services providers provide an extensive number of channels for viewing, it is apparent that television programming guides, when considered in total, may contain a significant amount of information regarding programming schedules. In addition, many guides now make available detailed information about specific programs, thereby multiplying the total amount of information available through a program guide.
Designers of program guides and guide display schemes are faced with the challenge of creating systems and displays through which a user might easily manage and access the vast amounts of available information. A common method is to associate the information with a time and channel, and to display the information within a two-dimensional array with channels running serially along one (usually horizontal) axis and time running sequentially along a perpendicular (usually vertical) axis. However, the amount of intelligible information that can feasibly be displayed on a television screen is primarily determined by the minimum font size that can be reasonably viewed at a normal viewing distance, and in many applications cannot be smaller than 18 points (as a basis for comparison, the average font size of printed content is usually between 9 and 11 points). For a conventional television, this factor restricts the content that can be displayed to approximately 40 text characters per line and not more than 25 lines per display. Generally, this is significantly less display capability than what is required to display all of the information contained in a program guide at any one time. As such, only a limited portion of the array is typically displayed at any one time, thereby allowing the displayed portion to be of a magnitude reasonably sufficient for viewing.
In order to access the undisplayed portions of the guide, guide users are typically provided with a remote control device that includes four directional buttons for scrolling horizontally and vertically through the array. This system might be visualized as shown in FIG. 1, in which the entire array 110 of information is laid out and a smaller window 120, through which the array is viewed, is moved in front of the array. Typically, this scrolling is accomplished by moving in single time/channel steps through the guide, or be incrementing or decrementing the time/channel in discrete amounts. In addition, many remote controls additionally include the ability to enter specific channel numbers to be displayed, such that a portion of the array containing the specified channel and channels nearby is displayed. By either method, the ability to search for specific information within the entire array is limited, and browsing through program guides can be tedious and time consuming.